So today I started working on sanding down the two oak shelves i’ll be installing in my office. Today was slightly disappointing because I didn’t have all the sanding pads i needed, figured starting at 240 grit with my orbital sander would be ok but some imperfections were just not coming off. Googled it and yes, I really should’ve started with 80 grit. Got back home, set up my kit and materials outside a 2nd time and started at 80, and got to 600 grit when it started to rain a tiny bit had to rush everything back inside. I could go back out and finish today but i felt guilty about the noise my sander was making for 2hrs straight while in my patio.
On the plus side the boards are looking good, i should have taken pics of them from the start but i just didn’t think about it so at this point i’ll just worry about taking a pic of them before and after i finish them with oil. I’m pretty sure they’ll look awesome the boards are curly oak and the wood grain is really beautiful.
Semi-update. Today was another day in “You don’t know what you don’t know, until it’s too late”.
Last time i did any woodworking was senior year of HS, so this was forever ago and i recall sanding what i was working on from a low grit to a high one. But i’ve never applied a protective oil to something, but in my mind it’s gotta at least start the same right? Nope. I finished sanding my shelves today up to 1000 grit, they felt super nice, i cleaned them with mineral spirit, set them aside and look up what to do next. Instructions for the oil i have says to sand up to 180 grit, maybe 220 grit. I was annoyed at myself for not reading these instructions first but i just didn’t think to do so since it was the last step But i also figured out that i was missing the part B to the oil to get it to cure faster, otherwise i’d have to wait like 2-3 weeks, and i just don’t want to wait that long.
Zoomed back to the wood supply store, get my part B and zoom back, sanded my boards again with 150grit (i don’t have 180grit and i’m just not going back to the store again). I blast them with air to blow away the fine sawdust in the wood pores, i end up having to clean them like 3 times with mineral spirit because i must’ve handled them with really greasy hands and my hand prints were just not going away, and i’m at a stopping point for today I hope to apply the oil tomorrow and maybe they’ll be ready to hang up in a week from now.
ok, so these first sketches are all brown conté, but I am not able to detect any difference between how conté, chalk, chalk pastel, and charcoal work in terms of use.
this first one you can still (barely , bad pic) see a bit of the “ground” in the empty space, the ground is the even tone I layed down first which I drew over or erased as needed.
the big advantage of this type of medium is that the charcoal or etc 's particles can be blended, pushed around, built up, and removed kind of like particle effects in Photoshop etc. a hard line can’t ever be completely erased (but a lot of it can.) but most coverage that you don’t grind heavily into the paper comes off well enough. you can push around and blend with fingers, cloth, or blending sticks which are just paper tightly rolled into a point like a fat pencil. buy or make. use point or edge. but once I’m in my zone it’s all fingers
you can see eraser marks that leave a line but some areas I lifted the tone by lightly rubbing, which doesn’t leave an edge and the border looks blended. a kneaded eraser is really good for lifting tone. knead to get soft, press on the drawing, tone lifts off like silly putty on comics. repeat as needed. can also be used as a regular eraser and can be shaped into a point for small areas, but I prefer getting the thin white erasers in pens for that. I posted examples upthread.
this one is more sketchy, you can just block in light and dark areas like an Impressionist. although I erased out the original ground to make the background white. some areas of the body still have the original ground, some darkened, some erased.
this one I erased the ground out of the background again . the head is finished but the bust I left unfinished. if I wanted to, I could keep working the bust until it matched the finish of the face.
this last one is charcoal but it’s a bit smaller than the above. a few of the fine lines I finished with pencil. you can work a corner of the charcoal stick into a point on some scrap paper but I needed pencil on a few places here. then the color is some art crayons I had on hand. I would’ve preferred using chalk pastel to draw with, but the colors on the art crayons were more brilliant, since the drawing was so small I opted for that.
Those are great! They really show a range of things you can do with that technique. That bottom one especially gets at my current taste for mixing different materials. I love how the color pops.
Thanks for following up.
I finally got around to repairing that old cleaver. Unfortunately, I was unable to source Corby bolts or cutlery rivets that would fit the holes on the scales. They are just not available in 3/8" diameter. I finally went with Loveless fasteners, similar idea as Corby bolts but easier to install. They were still too small, so I tried to fill the gaps with epoxy mixed w/ sawdust, not very successfully. Oh well, it works for now. next time I’ll make new scales
Got it from the library. The flow style is hard! I can’t go quick enough. Experimenting has been useful though, especially the way blooms are explained
Two tries at the apple exercise
I’m not an expert at watercolors but i do have some experience with it from taking art classes in college, but if you want to do watercolors and want to avoid the paper warping you should consider stretching it.
Pre-wet your paper, staple it down by the edges to a piece of foamboard or stiff cardboard and you can either paint on it while still wet or let it fully dry. Here’s a how to
Edit: If you already knew don’t mind me, but would be helpful for those that might not know
Those look great! I especially like how some of the blooms in the top one look like topo maps of river deltas or something.
I had the same issue with learning to go fast enough and to make a wet enough paint mix.
I can’t remember if she says this in the book, but another trick is to paint the shapes in plain water first to pre-wet the paper, then go in with the colors.
It varies so much. Depending where I am and the season, sometimes I’m frustrated with how long things take to dry and other times I can hardly finish a stroke without it drying out.
Yeah, even with all that I find I need to press or iron the paper when I’m done if I want it really flat. I wonder, have you and @Grey_Devil found the same?
I have found that as well, but you need to understand that I’m not artistic if it requires fine motor skills, so I’ve only done watercolor classes in tandem with my daughter or friends because of their interest. So once the course is done, I recycle my works. They’re learning tools, not anything worth putting on a wall. So I don’t actually care about specific details like that!
It’s been a real long time since i’ve worked with watercolor or watered down acrylics, i don’t recall having problems with the paper still warping after stretching it but that’s not to say i didn’t experience it. Off the top of my head it could be the weight/thickness of the paper needs to be switched to something else, or whatever particular brand you’re using, or not enough water was used on the paper when stretching it in the first place
Actually, I am getting a faint memory that you could put a board over the paper and weigh it down while it dries to encourage it to be real flat, so you’re probably right on pressing on it or ironing it.
I’ve been trying to stretch it with painters tape but haven’t quite gotten the hand of itm I don’t mind the warping much though.
I think I need to get it wet on the opposite side, wait a few minutes, and then stretch
Yeah you’ll want to wet both sides. I found that stapling works best, i did use tape in addition to the staples but it was more to keep a tidy border than anything. That said if you don’t mind the warping as much then there are no issues
hey, y’all! seeing your posts about wetting paper to stretch for a WC surface…
i use heavy, uncoated and dampened “cardstock” (a term that means squat to me, btw) along the lines of 350 to 500 gsm (that’s grams per square meter - a much better differentiator of paper weight and thereby thickness) for my etchings. these prints hang on a line in my shop and will definitely warp as both paper and ink dry.
once dry, they get slipsheets between each and go into a heavy pressing to flatten them back out.
have any of you watercolorists ever used a watercolor block of paper? i believe Dan Smith or Dick Blick carries the most popular Strathmore brand. these are tight, flat, thick “cardstock” (ugh! that word again!) that has been padded on all four sides in a stack. it is thick enough that it would not bleed through from one sheet to the next below, so long as you are not slopping super wet over super wet washes, etc.
you can also make your own by padding a stack of pretrimmed stock one edge at a time, under weight:
using a corner jig - any right angle apparatus that is tall enough to accept the stack and a cover board of same size as stack.
place paper and jog tightly to the corner and continue until you have a block the desired thickness - 10, 20, or more sheets
cover with cover board and place heavy weights on top or use c-clamps or pony clamps to squeeze the exposed edge tightly
apply Elmer’s glue (or equivalent) to exposed edge using an adequate brush
allow to dry, unclamp/weight and turn to expose new, unglued edge
repeat steps 1 - 5 until all four edges are glued into a block.
do your thing…
allow your creation to dry on the block before using a razor blade or xacto to separate and thar ya go!
they don’t call me Papiermeister for nuthin’ y’all
had to rush everything back inside. I could go back out and finish today but i felt guilty about the noise my sander was making for 2hrs straight while in my patio.
the boards are curly oak and the wood grain is really beautiful.
But i also figured out that i was missing the part B to the oil to get it to cure faster, otherwise i’d have to wait like 2-3 weeks, and i just don’t want to wait that long.
